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Note: the author is mistakenly (or perhaps deliberately) calling al-Assad's regime secular. China's growing ties with Syria
This is an interesting argumentative essay on "Salafism". However, it is also a disappoitment. If I was to give a score, it would be 50\100. It is a good essay in terms of arguments and counter-arguments, etc. I have learnt a few things from it. However, I find such a way of writing too horizontal as if ideas emerge from people's minds with no connection to real life in their respective societies. I do not accept the excuse that I often hear: "Dealing with the social, economic, political, class, background of ideas is beyond the scope of this essay." A history which we can learn from is a history that is holistic with its interactive components and ingredients. Otherwise, it is sterile. I recall reading Assef Bayat, for example, analysing the Islamic movements in Iran and Egypt or Karen Armstrong dealing with how "Religion Fights Back" or how "Jihād" went global. There is a background, there is the vertical and the horizental. I have been d
Varoufakis "speaks of how great it was to have the support of Larry Summers, Norman Lamont, and other figures on the Right, but it was support for whom, for what, and in whose class interests? Class analysis is far from the foreground of the picture sketched out here. Closed rooms and class war

Saïd et Sartre: A Bitter Disappointment

"30 years later, the point of conflict between Said and de Beauvoir is still hotly debated following Western assaults on hijabs, niqabs, burqas and other traditional Muslim attire. The defense of these garments, taken on by thinkers like Saba Mahmood and Lila Abu-Lughod is often deeply indebted to Said’s work on racist Western conceptions of the East." "A bitter disappointment": Edward Said on his encounter with Sartre, de Beauvoir and Foucauld and  Edward Said's diary 
Legalised crime A couple of years ago, a teacher told me "it wasn't a problem if the bankers, the wealthy, etc engabe in tax evasion and tax avoidance because they create wealth and put it in the economy." "Perhaps the biggest problem is that tax havens mostly benefit financial elites, including some politicians and many of their donors. Meanwhile, pressure from voters for action is limited by the boring and confusing nature of the problem.  Sandwich, anyone?" —    (bbc online) How much of the world's wealth is hidden offshore